Best Buy Ending CD Sales This July

With digital sales and streaming eclipsing the sale of physical media, Best Buy has announced they will start pulling CDs from stores this July. Billboard reports CD sales only amount for about $40 million annually throughout the entire company, a paltry sum compared to what the chain used to make. Despite the pull, Best Buy will continue to sell vinyl at their stores, per an agreement it made to vendors. Vinyl will be merchandised alongside turntables, Billboard's sources suggest.

Best Buy isn't the only retailer looking to change their CD market, as Target is also looking to begin steps to reorganize their sale structure for music as well as blu-ray and DVDs. Currently, Target agrees to pay for any goods they're shipped within 60 days, and they have to spend money to ship back unsold CDs. Now, Target is trying to pass the risk to labels, by changing their operations to scanned-based trading. This way, Target would only have to pay for items that have actually sold. Sources close to Billboard say that one major label is unlikely to agree to those terms, while two others are undecided.

There are large ramifications here, mostly in factoring where consumers where buy their CDs, if they will at all. This model seems to push casual listeners even more into digital and streaming media, and time will tell if this will have that great of an impact on overall sale of music in the United States.